The present invention relates to an attachment for a camera for obtaining an instantaneous contact print of a picture taken through the camera, and particularly for a 35 mm. camera.
Polaroid film has long been relied on by professional photographers to test lighting and composition prior to the actual picture taking. There has never been, however, an effective way of getting an instant picture from a 35 mm. camera, the most commonly used professional camera. Thus, a professional photographer using a 35 mm. camera has had no effective way of determining in advance whether he has selected the proper exposure, lighting, lens, filter, etc.
Accordingly, a professional photographer who may be on an assignment to photograph an important historical event or a model within a studio setting may not discover until his film is developed that his pictures are not acceptable because of incorrect selection of the various parameters, when it is too late to recapture the historical event or too costly to reproduce the studio setting. It is when this occurs that even the most experienced photographers long for some device that would tell them what is really happening with the camera, whether the object to be photographed has been properly arranged, whether the lighting, exposure and lens have been properly selected.
The obvious way to ascertain the answers to all these questions is to use Polaroid film in order to get an instant print. Toward such end, there have been provided Polaroid backs for certain cameras but these have been unsatisfactory because they either require their own additional optical systems, or such permanent alteration of the camera body as to render the camera no longer usable with the intended film. Examples of such prior art cameras adapted to provide instant pictures on Polaroid film are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,266,696 and 3,852,780.
There has heretofore never been provided, for a 35 mm. camera, an attachment enabling the obtaining of an instantaneous contact print on Polaroid film of a picture taken through the regular optical system of the camera, without mutilating the camera to such an extent that it is no longer capable of using conventional 35 mm. film, and without discernible loss of light and/or degradation of the photographic image.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide, for a 35 mm. camera in particular, an easily attachable assembly which enables the photographer to obtain an instantaneous contact pring on Polaroid film without any discernible loss of light and without changes in the image characteristics.